This powerful 2011 shows meaty and smoky notes. With a fresh entrance, this wine delivers a fruity and chalky expression with present but civilized tannins. Well integrated oak.

The Best Wines For A Date Night At Home Sumptuous with red-black fruits and a savory edge, this beautifully structured Merlot-dominant red blend is perfect with any grilled meat. Winemakers Pierre and Nicolas Seillan (father and son, respectively) release vintages when they agree the wine is ready for prime time—hence the 2011 in our midst. This is not a wine that will pummel you with power; rather it’s a silky-smooth landing into black cherry, dark forest floor and warm spice. Buy one to enjoy tonight and one to cellar.

What to Drink Now: Cabernet Franc In Sonoma, Tuscany and Bordeaux, celebrated winemaker Pierre Seillan reveals the beauty and structure of the grape while allowing each individual micro-climate to shine...Chateau Lassegue St. Emilion Grand Cru ($100) highlights Right Bank Bordeaux terroir giving a mineral note to the concentrated Cabernet Franc and old-vine Merlot-based wine.

Lassegue-Exceptionally well made wine Three out of Three Glasses (only others listed for Saint Emilion are Cheval Blanc and Chateau Ausone) Wine with a high finesse, voluptuous and harmoniuos.

2005 vintage, one of the finest vintages in Bordeaux history, but most of the vintage has already been sold. Not winemaker Pierre Seillan’s. He held onto his wine all this time because he felt it needed time to develop more. If you missed the Super Vintage Boat, sigh no more…Chateau Lassegue is here.

Very good body, complex nose, excellent tannins. Drink From 2013. Three Stars, 16/20

Blacksih purple. Tarry, inky aromas and a suggestion of over-ripeness on the palate. Lots of quite aggressive tannin, but I'd like to see a little more acidity and freshness of fruit, especially on the rather heavy finish. Picked 26 sept to 11 oct apparently with a record long post fermentation maceration of up to five weeks. Drink 2012-2018. 15.5/20 pts.

Very oaky in the nose, with a good smoky backnote. Posh, mostly oak-driven wine.

Jess Jackson and wife Barbara Banke teamed up with Pierre Seillan to revive Chateau Lessegue on the right bank of the Gironde River in Bordeaux. This most worthy wine is a blend of mostly Cabernet Franc and old-vines Merlot and some Cabernet Sauvignon. It's quite the taste: gorgeous silky ripe tannins, intense concentration of flavors, and a long, rich finish. The nose is licorice, herbs and vanilla; tannins coat the mouth; and flavors are cherries, cassis, dark chocolate and espresso. It's such a showy wine, it would take quite the show-stopping dish to match with it -- a thick, grilled veal chop or chateaubriand. It's a flavor experience to taste the intensity of the Caberent Franc!

During their search for a property in Bordeaux, California vintner Jess Jackson and his business partner, French vigneron Pierre Seillan, were particularly impressed with Saint-Emilion's Chateau Lassegue. The estate's roughly 83 acres of vineyards boast nine different soil types (one of the region's most diverse plots) and 30- to 45 year old vines. Both vintners felt the property could produce wines of first-growth quality. In the Chateau Lassegue Saint Emilion Grand Cru 2004, their instincts are vindicated. Seillan's exacting method of separately harvesting, vinifying and blending small blocks of vineyards known as micro-crus has resulted in a complex and unusually detailed wine in a vintage that challenged most producers. The nose is redolent of strong roasted coffee and spicey licorice, while the velvety and voluptuous palate reveals ripe black plum, wild berries and vanilla bean before the lengthy finish of orange zest and cardamom.

Big bouquet, vigorous in the mouth, round and fruity, this is a Saint Emilion with personality

Lovely, classic, luscious fruit exploding from the glass. Drink from 2010.

Collectible gift wine! A Customer - New York Right up there with the 1st Growths - Lafite, Latour, Margaux, etc. And at a fraction of their cost :) A Customer - San Francisco, CA Opulent, rich, delicious. A Customer - San Antonio, TX Tried blind next to Opus One - it blew it out of the water. I rated the Opus 91, this was a solid 95+ pointer in my book. A Customer - Seattle, WA Great stuff - try with rack of lamb, match made in heaven. A Customer - Naples, FL Extremely good value in Grand Cru Bordeaux. Tastes like many $100+ bottles I've tried in the last year. A Customer - Boston, MA Received this as part of my Build Your Cellar wine club shipment - all I can says is WOW. What an incredible bottle of Bordeaux.

Predominantly composed of Cabernet Franc, with a touch of Cabernet Sauvignon, this Saint-Emilion layers voluptuous plum fruit against a sweet, sultry smoke

A vibrant wine, notes of black cherry, cassis, herbs, cedar and rose petal. Integrated tannins. Elegant.

2003 Lassegue, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru: intense flavors and aromas of black cherries, minerals and spice; firm tannin; tart, fruity finish; $50. Wandering but grounded, he's `a servant of the soil' Fred Tasker ftasker@MiamiHerald.com Pierre Seillan seems a little too down-to-earth to be a globe-trotting, jet-setting ''Flying Winemaker'' -- one of those charismatic characters who flits about the world running winemaking operations at a dozen wineries in half a dozen countries. But he seems like one to his wife, Monique, who says she seldom sees him at their homes in California and France. ''If his mistress were a woman, I could compete with that,'' she sighs. ``But his mistress is his job. What can I do?'' Seillan began to wander in 1997 after 30 years of winemaking in France's Bordeaux region. That's when he met Jess Jackson, who, with his wife and fellow lawyer, Barbara Banke, has create a far-flung empire of wine operations in the United States, France, Italy, Chile and Australia, including notably Kendall-Jackson in California. The winemaking styles of Jackson and Seillan proved sympathetic, and Seillan today oversees red wine operations at several of Jackson's wineries as consultant or winemaker. He makes a red wine called ''Le Désir,'' a blend of cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon and merlot, at Jackson's Vérité winery near Healdsburg in California's Sonoma Valley. He makes the red wine called ''Arcanum,'' of the same grapes, at Jackson's Tenuta di Arceno, in Italy's Tuscany region. Now Jackson and Seillan have teamed up to buy Chteau Lassgue, a 60-acre grand cru vineyard and winery in Bordeaux's Saint-Emilion region. ''Saint-Emilion is the most serious appellation in Bordeaux,'' Seillan says. ``It's not one of your generic Bordeaux areas.'' Seillan and Jackson were impressed with the vineyard's limestone soils, which give wine that French hint of minerality, and its perfect southwest sun exposure, which is crucial to getting grapes fully ripe. There's also a beautiful old chteau on the property, where the Seillans live part of the year. At the chteau, Seillan is turning out two wines from different plots with different soils. One is $35, the second is $50. Neither is a ''second wine,'' he insists, simply ``another wine.'' Reflecting Seillan's style, both are subtle wines based on merlot, with a French restraint and minerality. ''I am a servant of the soil,'' he says. ``It's not the other way around. I want wines that are fruity, with power but finesse and elegance, not too much tannic astringency.'' Visiting Miami, Seillan also was showing off wines he has made at Jackson's Verité and Tenuta di Arceno wineries. Both show his subtle touch, his ability to create intensity and complexity without bombast. And next year -- maybe later -- Monique hopes to slow down her flying winemaker and spend more time in France, fixing the plumbing and redoing the paint on their 18th century chteau. ''It needs repair, but all the money must go into the wine,'' she says, sighing again. ``Someday . . . ''

If there's a wine lover on your holiday gift list...there's Grand old world/new world red blends that includes the 2003 Lassegue Saint Emilion (Parker 89)....

Jess Jackson picked a difficult vintage to make his first Saint Emilion but his new chateau has yielded a lovely, ripe (but not too ripe) wine bursting with clean plum and fresh acidity; it is long, pure and beautifully balanced and showing rich fruit, soft oak and excellent breeding. An auspicious debut. Gorgeous package.

Aromas of guava and apricot with pear and pink grapefruit flavors and wet stone elements. Lush, long and seductive.

Ng is a huge fan of the Anderson Valley terroir, famous for imparting Old World nuance and style to New World pinot noir and syrah. He explains winemaker Eric Johannsens's Champ de Reves - it's named for the vineyard high above Boonville and 18 miles from the Pacific coast, where the grapes grow - offers a perfect balance of blue and red fruits. It's supple, yet juicy, with a very silky elegance but also earthy characteristics. From the nose, he gets amazing aromas of cranberry, coriander, rose, juniper, brown sugar, raspberries and cherries. The wine spent nine months in French oak barrels, 33 percent new.

Anderson Valley, in California’s Mendocino County, benefits from temperatures cooler than those in Napa and Sonoma counties to the south, making it ideal territory for pinot noir. This is a prime example: rich in flavor with blueberry and wood spice and sleek in body, with a lingering finish.

Black cherry, cola, cedar, dusty leather and vanilla with savory black cherry skin and spicy tannins.

A pinot with deep cherry fruit and great minerality. Notes of cranberry, blueberry and spice. Good bones (structure).

2011 Champ de Reves Pinot Noir, Anderson Valley: powerful and crisp, with aromas and flavors of black raspberries, licorice and tobacco, full and creamy;$40.